Trouble Shooter

 

North American Cover Art

Japanese Cover Art

Trouble Shooter - Genesis (1991)

Developed by Vic Tokai

Published by Vic Tokai

Released in 1991 by Vic Tokai, Trouble Shooter (AKA Battle Mania) is a side scrolling shooter for the Genesis/Mega Drive featuring two lead heroines Madison and Crystal as the main characters. The title is unique in that the player controls both characters at once while they battle their way through 6 stages on jet packs. Madison controls as the main character while Crystal behaves more like an option of sorts that you can maneuver as an extension of the main character. The player is also able to switch which direction Crystal fires allowing you to take on enemies from behind you as well. 

The game's visual style is very much anime inspired and is very colorful and interesting to look at. There is also some anime styled comedy presented throughout the storyline as well as in the gameplay. The way the first boss plays out gave me a chuckle for sure. 

The gameplay is very forgiving to the player for a few key reasons. 1. A lot of enemy projectiles can be shot down by the player as an alternative to dodging them. 2. The player has a life bar of sorts with several extends to the lifebar littered throughout the levels as well as by achieving scoring milestones of every 60,000 points. 3. The player's "super" weapon recharges in a relatively short amount of time resulting in any level's challenges made trivial if you time your use of supers well. 

Regarding the "super" weapons there are 4 different ones the player is able to choose from before starting each stage. Throughout the levels there are also power up icons that strengthen the players default weapons as well as speed up and slowdown icons to allow the player to adjust movement speed. In the last couple of stages the player no longer has access to their super weapon which does add a small amount of challenge to those stages not present in the earlier stages. 

All in all this is a pretty fun and easy clear pretty well suited for beginners. After a few runs to familiarize yourself to the game's mechanics, a 1CC likely won't be too far behind. I've heard that the JP only sequel Battle Mania 2 does provide more of a challenge and is definitely on the list for me to check out in the future!

My final score of my 1CC run.